


Reprieve

by Literary



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:25:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8301674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Literary/pseuds/Literary
Summary: Erwin is laid to rest.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Say only this, 'They are dead.' Then add thereto,  
> 'Yet many a better one has died before.'  
> Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you  
> Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,  
> It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.  
> Great death has made all his for evermore.
> 
> -"When you see millions of the mouthless dead" // Charles Sorley

“They’re gone,” steals the silence from the world. The words are her own, but Hange can’t quite bring herself to assign a connection between them and her own voice.

Her face hurts and the kids are huddled together on the other side of the rooftop. Levi stares at what Hange suspects is nothing but may in actual fact be everything. Nobody is asking the obvious question.

_What now?_

So she thinks, for a moment, about what Erwin would do, and comes to the conclusion that Erwin listened to people’s questions but didn’t wait for the obvious ones to be asked: those, he answered as if anticipating them.

So she draws her fingers through Erwin’s hair one more time, brushing it out of his eyes, and gets to her feet, the movement more sluggish than she’d like.

“It’s safe, here,” she tells them. Connie breathes again, as if he needed to hear it. She offers him something she hopes doesn’t look like a grimace. “For now,” she adds, her words sounding choppy. _Until they come_ , she’s not saying aloud. “Rest a little. Clean up.”

She’s on the ground when she hears a sound and looks up to see Jean, head cocked to the side, looking down at her. “Where’re you going, Commander?” She doesn’t miss the way his voice stumbles over the title. _You are the commander now, right?_ is his silent question.

She shakes her head, eyes lowering, and leaves, boots dragging in the dust.

* * *

 

It’s Jean that brings Levi back from the edge of something confusing and uncertain by grumbling under his breath: “What kind of an answer is that?” he asks, kicking at a loose shingle.

It takes Levi a long time to answer, but in the interim nobody else has anything to say about it. Eren’s still latched onto Armin as if both their lives depend on maintaining physical contact, and Mikasa hovers nearby. Connie’s already started first aid on Sasha. Levi flexes his hand and feels the joints ache just before they pop.

“She doesn’t know,” he tells Jean.

“What?” Jean looks up, confusion sprinkled all over his face in a way that makes Levi want to grind his teeth.

It’s silly to be impatient with a kid who’s put his life on the line as Jean’s been doing for months and sillier still to bother answering at this point, but he does it anyway, maybe just because it’s something to do that doesn’t involve any real thinking. “Where she’s going.”

He’s not about to tell these kids that sometimes a person has to be alone to grieve, has to have their own space to sort out the jumble of words and feelings and whatever else might be knocking around inside their head after their entire world has started to collapse.

He doesn’t have to ask Hange about Moblit or the others; he knows they’re all dead, blown to smithereens or worse, but he wonders if Hange had to see it happen.

He’s not very sure there’s a preferable option between seeing it or not: at least if she saw it happen she knows the truth, the reality: she knows for-sure and not well- _probably_. There’s always a glimmer of peace in knowing the truth.

He touches Erwin’s arm and realizes that the skin still feels cool from shock and blood loss—but warm enough, yet, to house a beating heart. Erwin is most assuredly dead, but Levi suddenly understands that time measurable in minutes have passed since he’s had to make one of the hardest choices of his life.

But at least it _was_ a choice, this time, he reminds himself. At least he was aware that he was making a choice, and of what the consequences would be.

He spares a glance to Armin, sees all three of the kids looking glassy-eyed and overwhelmed.

It was a good choice he made, picking Armin. The kid’s smart, inventive. And he’s not tired in the way Erwin is— _was_ , he has to remind himself. Erwin _was_ tired, running on fumes and damn near the end of his rope.

But he’s not tired anymore. That has to count for something. The thought turns over in Levi’s head as he gets to his feet and gestures to the nutcase who wanted to bring Erwin back because they thought they were spared death to save the life of a demon. “Keep an eye on him,” he tells the kid, though he knows it’s not as if Erwin’s going anywhere.

“Captain?” the kid asks, hand reaching out as if to touch his arm.

Levi’s lip curls slightly. Erwin was cold and calculated, sometimes, but he had never been as unfeeling as a demon, though he felt certain Commander Erwin Smith had always feared he toed too close to the line for even his own sanity. “Attend the injured,” he says to them all, and makes his way down to the street.

* * *

 

She finds herself in what must have once been a splendid garden. There are vines climbing rotting trellises and patches of overgrown flowers. She’s still not sure what to think or feel or _do_. Too much has happened and they’re safe, here, for a little while. They’ll be something like heroes when they get home, probably. There will be celebrations and singing and a lot of ale—a first for the Survey Corps. The thought is more bitter than sweet.

She swallows but her throat feels swollen, almost as if she’s about to start crying.

The realization that it’s been what feels like years since she last felt it was appropriate to express herself that way is what sends the tears down her face—at least on one side. She’s not sure what’s wrong with her other eye, if it’s hurt or scratched or just plain gone. Maybe there’s too much drying blood to allow for tears.

It’s not as if it matters. She’s been lucky—or maybe blessed. If not for Moblit’s quick thinking they both would have perished in the explosion.

Her breath shudders as she inhales. Moblit was a good soldier. They all were.

Erwin, too.

She sits in the middle of the overgrown garden and swipes her dirty sleeve across her face.

They’ll go to the basement and then they’ll go home, and people will celebrate in the streets while Commander Hange Zoë writes what will feel like a million letters of condolence, signing her name neatly to the bottom of each one.

Her fingers wrap around the stems of the nearby flowers and she breaks them off one by one, gathering them up in her arms as if each one represents a soldier lost to this war.

* * *

 

Levi’s not sure what he’s doing in the room beneath the roof the others are still perched on, but it’s tidy in a spartan kind of way that seems fitting to him. There’s a desk and a chair, a small bed, a nightstand. He moves to the desk, looks down at the papers scattered there, and wonders for a few minutes about the person who used to live here.

More out of habit than anything, he gathers the papers together, stacking them neatly. The writing on the parchment is faded from the sun, but he makes an effort to identify them, anyway. Essays, he realizes after a moment, all on the same topic, all written in a different, but similarly-childlike, hand. The inkwell is dry, the pen on the floor. He straightens the desk and pushes the chair in afterward for reasons he doesn’t quite understand.

The windowpanes groan as he pushes them outward, and the bedsheet, when he shakes it out outside, sends dust billowing back into his face.

He tucks the sheet back against the sagging mattress with a precision that he learned long before entering the military and uses the edge of his cloak to wipe off the nightstand.

_There_ , he feels, rather than thinks. It’s far from perfect with its patched floor and dust from years of disuse, but something about the place seems fitting, somehow. Satisfied, though he’s not introspective enough to consider why, he makes his way back to the roof.

The kids are still there, Sasha’s head propped up on someone’s cloak, fresh bandages around her injury. Jean’s being looked at by both the demon-kid, whose only skill seems to be first aid, and Mikasa, whose forehead looks lined in a way he’s sure it didn’t look a few days ago.

Hange hasn’t returned, yet, but he knows she will when she’s ready, and she’ll be ready soon whether she actually is or not. It’s not as if she has a choice. He feels a twinge of something for her—sympathy, maybe—but it passes. She’s always been strong and she’s seen so much worse than this.

At least Erwin’s in one piece. He looks peaceful, though only compared to the last hours of his life. The lines by his eyes are faint and the perpetual forehead crease looks smoother than he thinks he’s ever seen it. Maybe there is something like peace to be found in death for those who have suffered too much while living.

He’s not entirely sure what he’s doing even as he slides his arms beneath Erwin’s body.

“Captain?” It’s Eren, eyebrows drawn close together, concern in his eyes. “Let me—” He swallows hard, bites his cheek, and tries again as Levi stares impassively up at him. “I’ll help, if you want. If I can.” He takes a step closer and Levi sees that the kid’s fingers are trembling, slightly.

Another mountain of guilt placed on young shoulders; Levi feels suddenly too weary to be doing this.

“Please,” Eren all but whispers.

Levi nods and Eren rushes over to help, probably exhausted himself but in desperate need of something to do.

The Beast Titan and Reiner Braun are gone, but it’s not something to celebrate. They’ve failed, but this is their reprieve. The war isn’t over, yet, but for now the fighting is. They might as well do what they never seem to have time for when they’re outside of the walls like this: bury their dead.

Levi can carry Erwin by himself, but it would be cumbersome and undignified. With Eren’s help, it will at least come close to resembling something normal. This is the only friend he’s ever been allowed to properly lay to rest, and the knowledge stirs something inside of him, nearly makes him catch his breath.

“Captain, are you all right?”

He ignores the question, ignores the glances the other kids send his way as he and Eren take Erwin down from the roof and walk him up the stairs to the second floor.

“Here,” he says at last, tilting his head toward the bed.

Erwin is settled onto the slightly yellowed sheet and Eren wrings his hands, mouth opening and closing as if there is something he desperately wants to say.

Levi finds patience easily for the first time in a long time as he makes sure Erwin’s legs are straight and his arm is over his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Eren finally chokes out, the words bringing with them a million possible meanings.

Levi thinks maybe Eren means them all: he’s sorry for the loss in general, he’s sorry for the loss it brings to Levi, he’s sorry he wasn’t stronger or better or whatever the hell else there is to be sorry for.

_Me too_ , is something Levi can’t make himself say, though it’s true. He’s sorry for the way things have turned out—but there’s no going back, now: the choice has been made, and Levi’s not about to start regretting it, now.

And he doesn’t want Eren to regret it, either. He might have been an insubordinate little shit a little while ago but he can’t blame the kid for loving so hard. In fact, maybe Levi’s even a little envious of Eren’s capacity for love. Caring has always come so slowly to him; it’s letting go that’s the easy part.

So he reaches out for Eren, the palm of his hand resting against the kid’s shoulder. Things aren’t all right, so Levi can’t tell him that they are, but they will be, someday; they have to hope and trust in that.

So he says only, “Thanks,” and hopes Eren understands that none of the terrible things that have happened today are his fault.

* * *

 

Hange returns, fingers clutching some of the flowers she hadn’t accidently crushed in her grief. The kids are gathered outside of the house whose roof they’d been perched on just an hour or two earlier.

The question must be on her face when she grows closer and doesn’t see Levi with them, because Mikasa nods toward the house and says, “Upstairs,” without any prompting.

She finds Levi in the upper room standing next to Erwin’s body.

He doesn’t turn to face her.

“Waited for you,” he says, the phrase not quite sounding finished, coming from his lips. She’s grown used to his nicknames and that he doesn’t use one here in this room—

Well, it means something. She leaves without a word and returns a few minutes later, an old vine bottle in hand she’d spotted on her way up. She pushes the flowers from her hand into the small opening. One bloom droops sadly, the stem bent, so she moves to the open window and plucks it out, letting it fall from her hand to the ground outside.

“Hey,” she finally manages to say as she sets the bottle on the nightstand with more gentleness than she’s ever used for anything in her entire life.

When she turns to look at Levi he’s already watching her, head tilted slightly as if asking a question. She thinks she knows what it is and manages a little smile; she’ll be all right.

Erwin’s tattered cloak is folded neatly over Levi’s arm, and Hange shakes her head, shrugging off her own.

“Use mine,” she tells him, holding it out. The blood on her face is starting to crust and her eye feels as if it’s thudding in time with her heartbeat, but her cloak is remarkably clean and whole. She shakes it a little for emphasis and in the hope that Levi will be able to understand her as she understands him. She wants to do something for Erwin, too, and this is all that’s left.

He finally nods and trades her. She leans forward, says her goodbyes silently, fingers smoothing back Erwin’s hair again though she’s always liked the way it looked when it fell into his face: a little messier, a little less haunted—as he once must have been.

Levi waits until she pulls back to settle her cloak over Erwin’s face, and she closes her eyes, wills strength into her bones she’s sure she’ll need, and opens her eyes again to see Levi staring at her.

She puts her hand out and wriggles her fingers, waits for what feels like an eternity for Levi’s hand to join hers—but he does, eventually. She supposes she should offer her condolences, they both should, but condolences won’t change anything, and what they both need right now is to keep moving.

But she takes a moment to squeeze his hand, anyway, because sometimes it’s the smallest thing that ends up making the biggest difference.

“This is nice,” she says, voice cracking slightly, gesturing around them. She can’t remember the last time she lost a friend and was able to find even a sliver of comfort so soon afterward. Maybe she’s never had it.

Levi makes a sound that she’s sure is supposed to be a _yeah_ , and she wonders if he’s afraid to loosen his posture for fear of hearing his own voice crack. His face is lined as he takes his hand back, his lips thin and pressed tightly together.

She waits a few moments, lets herself remember how to breathe, and moves toward the window. “Are you ready?” she asks him, fingers pulling the panes closed.

“Leave it,” he says, voice so soft she almost doesn’t hear him.

She glances over her shoulder, expression confused, thinking for some reason of needing to prevent the elements coming inside this room after they leave it.

“Hange,” he says, voice unsteady.

Her name in this instance is a _please_ , she thinks, and Levi so rarely asks for anything of her that his request makes her chest hurt.

She turns to the window again and pushes it wide open.

**Author's Note:**

> Some people believe that a closed window prevents a person's soul from moving on after death.


End file.
